Ridiculous free airfare promotion
Not too long ago, I received an e-mail from Air Asia, a discount air carrier based in Malaysia, on a special “free seat” promotion they were offering. As the ad copy stated:
As the truly low-fare carrier, Air Asia is offering a ground-breaking promotion that will get you coming for more. Flying International is now FREE! You can now go on that long awaited holiday with your family and friends.
An amazing deal only for you - save more on your holidays! Hurry down to airasia.com and grab as many free seats as you want!
Basically, this promotion required that you book between May 14-16, 2008 in order to travel to any number of international destinations including Australia, China, Thailand and Philippines from one of Air Asia’s six travel hubs. However all travel had to take place between January 12 – April 30 2009. What a deal! (not)!
What kind of sleazy advertising is this? First of all, only a very limited number of these so called free seats were up for grabs on any specific flight (maybe 4-6 seats per flight). Can you imagine the online buying frenzy for one of these “so called free seats”? Many people will probably come to the conclusion that “booking a free seat” is akin to looking for a needle in a haystack! Thwarted in their attempt to get a ‘freebie’, I am guessing a lot of customers end up buying a normal discount ticket. Furthermore, these seats are not really free, as passengers still have to pay for a variety of miscellaneous taxes and fuel surcharges. As an example, if you’re able to get a free seat from Bangkok/Kuala Lumpur R/T, the taxes and fuel surcharges would have been $85USD. From what I understand, Air Asia came up with this stupid promotion to be competitive with Air Malaysia sub zero fare promo. Many Asia carriers have resorted to this type of marketing – Nok Air, a Thai air affiliate, as recently as last year had a 3 baht promotion.
This type of promotion is very slick marketing as it generates a lot of publicity for the airlines and enhances their name recognition. After one of these free fare promotions, can you imagine the number of people talking about it to their friends, family and co-workers.The downside is that the consumer gets conditioned to buy airline tickets only when the airlines offer one of these absurd “free seat sales”. But it is not really free!
Remember to read the fine print
Flights and fares are subject to availability. Seats are limited and may not be available on all flights, public holidays, school breaks and weekends. Other terms and conditions may apply.
As a footnote, Shortly after United Airlines announced their 2nd bag fee of $25, Air Asia instituted their own checked baggage fee program. Get this – you’ll save 40% when you pre-check baggage online (instead of paying 50 baht per bag, you’ll pay only 30baht). In addition, you’ll save up to 20% when you pre-book your meals online. Sorry, I will brown bag it!
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June 2nd, 2008 at 2:57 am
Hahahahaha I so agree with your opinion. I am Malaysian and have been following this sale quite closely, can’t help coz the papers are plastered with airlines adverts these days, Slight correction if you don’t mind. Air Asia was reacting to Malaysia Airlines’ Every Day Low Fares’ 1 million Zero Fares tickets. Therein lies another difference. Air Asia leads you think that their tickets are all FREE, whereby Mas makes it clearer by saying their fares are Zero $ but the tickets require customers to fork out for stuff like fuel surcharges. The other difference I think is the actual number of low fares seats are probably higher with Malaysia Airlines. The airlines explained this way. Many routes that they fly are always not full. So they offer up a percentage of seats, something like 20% or so of those routes for very low prices for people to book online. They explained that those seats would normally be empty anyway. So instead of not making any money at all and at the same time have to pay for fuel, they do this to minimise loss. Do you know if other airlines have tried this before?